NCUA headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Three former credit union employees, including a CEO who stole millions from an Arizona credit union, have been banned from participating in the affairs of any insured financial institution, the NCUA said Tuesday.
Susan Irene Romero is scheduled to begin her 26-month federal prison sentence on June 24 after she pled guilty to embezzling more than $2 million from the $17.9 million Winslow Santa Fe Credit Union in Winslow, Ariz., federal court records showed.
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She was ordered to pay restitution of $1,340,000 to the credit union and $1,020,000 to Stuart-Lippman & Associates, a Tucson, Ariz.-based collections agency. Romero admitted that she used several methods to steal the credit union's money, including unauthorized cash withdrawals, transfers to accounts associated with members of her family and checks issued from WSFCU using forged signatures.
The former executive even used her grandson's bank account to launder a portion of the stolen money and she also facilitated bad loans to family members, according to prosecutors. Court documents showed that a "significant portion" of the stolen funds was funneled to support a "struggling medical practice" of Romero's daughter.
Within 30 days after she was fired in May 2019, Romero sold her home and her daughter sold the building that housed her medical practice. Yet, none of these proceeds were used to pay restitution to WSFCU, the credit union's board of directors noted in a letter to a federal judge who sentenced Romero in March.
Diamond Hamilton of Tampa, Fla., and co-conspirators carried out a scheme to steal funds from member accounts at the $15.3 billion Suncoast Credit Union in Tampa from May 2019 to August 2019. Court documents did not identify Hamilton's job title.
Her role in the fraud scheme was to access member account information, change members' online passwords and add email addresses to their accounts that belonged to one of the co-conspirators, according to court documents. She then withdrew funds from member accounts and transferred that money to Diamond's Suncoast account or to other co-conspirators.
Hamilton was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison in May 2021. She is scheduled to be released in December, according to the Bureau of Federal Prisons.
She was ordered to pay $4,500 in restitution.
According to the NCUA, Vanessa Fletcher, a former employee with the $10.8 billion Alaska USA Federal Credit Union in Anchorage, allegedly used a member's debit card to make four purchases totaling $181.69.
She did not admit or deny to any wrongdoing, the consent order showed.
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Peter Strozniak
Credit Union Times reporter covering credit union operations, fraud, M&As, leagues, business continuity, and breaking news.
